Parents who want to pick up their kids at school in one New Jersey district now can submit to iris scans, as the technology that helps keep our nation's airports and hotels safe begins to make its way further into American lives.The Freehold Borough School District launched this high-tech, high-wattage security system on Monday with funding from the Department of Justice as part of a study on the system's effectiveness. As many as four adults can be designated to pick up each child in the district, but in order to be authorized to come into school, they will be asked to register with the district's iris recognition security and visitor management system. At this point, the New Jersey program is not mandatory.... http://abcnews.go.com

Al Qaeda and its former protectors — the Taliban — are in the midst of a powerful resurgence, according to accounts by local officials and information contained in new al Qaeda videotapes obtained by ABC News. U.S. troops are not permitted inside Pakistan, and the Pakistani army is barely seen in this part of Waziristan Province. The new videotapes show open recruitment for the jihad, or holy war, to kill Americans and their allies. The narrator says, "Come join the jihad caravan." "The Taliban resurgence this year has been enormous and quite extraordinary," said Ahmed Rashid, author of the book "Taliban: Militant Islam, Oil, and the Fundamentalism in Central Asia." ...http://abcnews.go.com/WNT/International/story?id=1537040&CMP=OTC-RSSFeeds0312

Pope Benedict XVI today released his first encyclical, a learned disquisition on the true meaning of love. The letter sent out to the entire Roman Catholic Church is titled Deus Caritas Est (God is Love). It says that erotic love between a man and a woman is degraded to a "commodity" of sex if it is not blended with selfless, higher, spiritual love. The 72-page document, which is professorial and academic in tone, will be seen as Benedict’s attempt to set the keynote of his nine-month-old papacy. It discusses God’s love for man, man’s love for God and love between humans. "Today, the term ’love’ has become one of the most frequently used and misused of words, a word to which we attach quite different meanings," the German-born pontiff writes at the start of the encyclical, traditionally the way by which the Pope delivers an important message to his Church. "I wish in my first encyclical to speak of the love which God lavishes upon us and which we in turn must share with others."...http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,3-2009408,00.html

Kenya is facing a humanitarian ``disaster'' as food aid runs out for the drought-stricken north and east, the United Nations' World Food Program said today. ``Stocks are very low and insufficient for February distributions,'' Tesema Negash, WFP country director for Kenya, said in an e-mailed statement. ``We are in the midst of an emergency. If we receive no new donations now, it is extremely likely that Kenya will be hit by a humanitarian disaster.'' Five years of drought in the past six in many parts of Kenya have left 1.2 million people dependent on food handouts, a number that's expected to increase to 2.5 million next month, the WFP said. The organization said it needs 350,000 metric tons (772,000,000 pounds) of food, valued at $238 million, to feed those 2.5 million this year. ...http://quote.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=10000087&sid=a_QQo9uygovM&refer=home

A male high school student can wear a skirt to school after the American Civil Liberties Union reached an agreement with school officials. The ACLU announced the deal Tuesday. It will allow a Hasbrouck Heights School senior to wear a skirt to protest the school's no-shorts policy. The district's dress code bans shorts between Oct. 1 and April 15, but allows skirts, a policy 17-year-old Michael Coviello believes is discriminatory. "I'm happy to be able to wear skirts again to bring attention to the fact that the ban on shorts doesn't make sense," Coviello said in a statement. The Hasbrouck Heights superintendent, Joseph C. Luongo, did not return telephone messages left Tuesday seeking comment. ...http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/01/25/national/main1236315.shtml?CMP=OTC-RSSFeed&source=RSS&attr=U.S._1236315

The ACLU sued the federal government Wednesday for blocking a Muslim scholar from entering the United States, arguing that the government should not use anti-terrorism laws as “instruments of censorship.”The lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union in U.S. District Court sought to open the way for Tariq Ramadan, a Swiss intellectual and Muslim scholar, to accept invitations to speak to audiences in the United States.Ramadan was blocked from accepting a tenured teaching position at the University of Notre Dame when his visa was revoked in August 2004 because of a provision of the Patriot Act, said Jameel Jaffer, an ACLU staff attorney....http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/11021079/from/RSS/